Compiled by Barbara G. Walker
KILLING (as in ‘Thou shalt not’)
The biblical god personally kills a total of 371,186 people, not counting his slaughter of every living thing in Genesis 7. The biblical god also orders the killing of a total of 1,862,265.
Gen. 22:2 – God accepts human sacrifices (including that of Jesus, later).
Ex. 12:29 – God kills all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.
Ex. 15:3 – God is a god of war.
Ex. 21:15-17 – Anyone who strikes or curses a parent must be killed.
Ex. 22:18 – Every witch must be killed.
Ex. 22:19-20 – You must kill anyone who “lieth with a beast,” or who worships any god other than Yahweh.
Ex. 31:15 – Anyone who works on the Sabbath must be killed.
Lev. 20:10,13,27 – You must kill adulterers, homosexuals, wizards and spirit mediums.
Lev. 21:9 – Any priest’s daughter who fornicates must be burned alive.
Lev. 24:16 – Blasphemers must be killed.
Num. 16:27-33 – God caused the whole tribe of Korah (men, women and children) to be buried alive.
Num. 21:3 – God caused the destruction of all the Canaanites.
Deut. 3:4 – God is pleased that his warriors destroyed 60 cities.
Deut. 7:16 – You must kill all the people God delivers into your hands and “thine eye shall have no pity upon them.”
Deut. 13:5 – Any prophet or “dreamer of dreams” who serves another god must be killed.
Deut. 13:6-9 – If your brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend tempts you to worship other gods, “thou shalt surely kill him.”
Deut. 13:15 – If the people of any city worship other gods, you must slaughter them all, including their cattle.
Deut. 17:5 – Any man or woman who worships other deities of sun, moon or stars must be stoned to death.
Deut. 18:20 – False prophets must be killed.
Deut. 20:16-17 – God commands complete destruction of all Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites and “thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.”
Deut. 22:21 – A bride found not to be a virgin must be stoned to death.
Deut. 22:22 – Adulterers must be killed.
Deut. 22:23-24 – A girl who is raped within city limits and fails to cry out must be killed.
Deut. 28:22-27 – If you don’t obey God’s commandments, he will punish you with consumption, fever, extreme burning, blasting, mildew, hemorrhoids, the scab, the itch, the botch of Egypt, etc., etc.
Josh. 6:21 – God’s warriors destroyed Jericho and killed every man, woman, child and domestic animal.
Josh. 8:25 – God’s warriors killed 12,000 people in the city of Ai.
Josh. 19:47 – The children of Dan wanted more room, so they destroyed the whole population of Leshen and took their territory.
Judges 1:17-18 – Judah and Simeon utterly destroyed the populations of Zephath, Gaza, Askelon and Ekron.
Judges 11:39 In accord with God’s law, Jephthah was forced to burn his virgin daughter to death as a sacrifice.
Judges 15:15 – God enables Samson to kill 1,000 men with the jawbone of an ass.
Judges 20:46 – At Gibeah, Benjamin’s men killed 25,000 people and burned every town.
1 Sam. 6:19 – God kills 50,070 people for trying to peek into the Ark.
1 Sam. 15:3 – God commands the destruction of Amalek: “Slay both men and women, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
2 Sam. 6:7 – God kills Uzzah for touching the Ark, even though he was trying to save it from falling off its oxcart.
1 Kings 18:40 – God commands the slaughter of “prophets of Baal.”
1 Kings 20:35, 36 – Because a man didn’t “obey the voice of the Lord,” a lion was sent to kill him.
2 Kings 2:24 – God sent bears to tear apart 42 children for making fun of Elisha’s bald head.
2 Kings 10:25 – God commands the killing of a multitude in the temple of Baal.
2 Kings 19:35 – God’s angel killed 185,000 Assyrians in a single night.
1 Chron. 21:14 – God kills 70,000 Israelites with a pestilence.
2 Chron. 15:13 – Any man or woman who refuses to “seek the Lord God of Israel” must be killed.
Job 1 – God arranges the killing of Job’s children, servants and animals.
Isa. 13:16 – God promises that all Babylonian children will be “dashed to pieces” before their parents’ eyes and wives will be raped.
Isa. 45:7 – God says “I create evil.”
Jer. 48:10 – Killing for God is mandatory; God curses anyone who “keepeth back his sword from blood.”
Jer. 50:21 – God commands that the people of Merathaim and Pekod be “utterly destroyed.”
Ezek. 9:5-7 – God calls for purging in Jerusalem: “let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids and little children and women . . . fill the courts with the slain.”
Ezek. 35:8 – God promises to fill the mountains, hills, valleys and rivers with slain men.
Hosea 13:16 – God promises to have Samaritan infants dashed to pieces, and pregnant women will have their bellies slashed open.
Nahum 1:2 – God is jealous, full of vengeance and wrath.
Zeph. 1:3 – God threatens to destroy everything, man and beast, birds and fishes.
Zeph. 1:18 – “The whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy.”
Zeph. 3:6 – God brags that he has destroyed many nations.
Zech. 13:3 – A false prophet must be killed by his father and mother.
RAPE
Ex. 21:7-8 – A father may sell his daughter to be a “maidservant” (or sex slave) who must “please her master.”
Num. 31:18 – God orders his warriors to kill every living thing in a captured city, except the virgin girls, who are to be raped and turned into sex slaves. (According to verse 35, there were 32,000 virgin girls thus taken.)
Deut. 21:11-12 – If a warrior likes the look of a female war captive, he can take her to be one of his “wives.”
Deut. 22:28-29 – A man who rapes a virgin may take her for a wife if he pays her father 50 shekels of silver. (Yet a bride found not to be a virgin must be killed. – Deut. 22)
Judges 5:30 – The spoils of war include “a damsel or two” for every man.
Judges 21:12-23 – God’s warriors killed all the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead except for 400 virgin girls, who were taken as slaves. If there are not enough girls to go around, God’s warriors may raid neighboring towns for more to rape.
SLAVERY
Gen. 9:25 – God cursed Ham, son of Noah, with perpetual slavery for seeing his father naked. (Ham was formerly considered the ancestor of all Negroes.)
Ex. 21:4 – A male slave may marry and have children, and may go free after six years; but his family remains the property (or hostages?) of his master.
Ex. 21:7 – A man may sell his daughter as a sex slave.
Ex. 21:20-21 – A man may be punished for beating a male or female slave to death, but if the victim survives the beating for a few days, then there is no penalty.
Lev. 19:20 – When a man has sex with a female slave (or “bondmaid”), she must be scourged.
Eph. 6:5 – Paul says slaves must obey their masters “with fear and trembling.”
Titus 2:9 – Paul says slaves must obey and please their masters.
1 Tim. 6:1 – Paul says slaves must “count their masters worthy of all honor.”
WAS JESUS ETHICAL?
Matt. 5:28-32 – Jesus says marriage to a divorcee is adultery, that a man who ogles a woman has already committed adultery, and that you must cut off your hand or pluck out your eye if it offends.
Matt. 6:19,34 – Jesus says don’t save any money and don’t plan ahead.
Matt. 8:32 – Having no regard for private property, Jesus destroys a herd of someone else’s pigs.
Matt. 10:34 – Jesus says he brings not peace on Earth but “a sword.”
Matt. 19:12 – Jesus says the best way for a man to be sure of getting into heaven is to have himself castrated.
Mark 11:13 – Jesus destroys a fig tree for not bearing figs out of season.
Mark 14:4-7 – Jesus says it is more important to anoint him with precious ointment than to give to the poor.
Mark 16:18 – Jesus says anyone who believes in him can play with venomous snakes or drink poison without harm. (This has been often tried, with rather unsatisfactory results.)
Luke 12:47-48 – Jesus says it is permissible to whip slaves.
Luke 14:26 – Jesus says no man can be his disciple unless he hates his parents, siblings, wife, children and himself as well.
Luke 19:27 – Jesus says anyone who denies his rulership must be killed.
John 15:6 – Jesus says anyone who doesn’t believe in him must be burned.
Acts 5:5-10 – Ananias and his wife Sapphira were killed for withholding money from the church.
2 John 1:10-11 – A Christian is forbidden to offer hospitality to a non-Christian, not even to wish him “Godspeed” on parting.
NEW TESTAMENT WOMEN
1 Cor. 11:3-10 – Women are inferior “because man was not created for woman, but woman was created for man.” Every woman “while praying or prophesying” must have her head covered “because of the angels,” meaning the spirits (it used to be believed that women’s hair attracts spirits).
1 Cor. 14:34-35 – Women must not speak in church. If they want to ask questions, they must learn from their husbands at home.
Eph. 5:22 – Wives must submit to their husbands as they would to God.
1 Tim. 2:11-14 – A woman must not teach, or hold authority over a man, but must “learn in silence with all subjection,” because “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” (So, being gullible is the original sin.)
1 Tim. 5:9 – Paul says the only women acceptable by the council of elders are devout, monogamous women over the age of 60.
PLAIN SILLINESS
Gen. 1:11-12 – God made all green plants on the third day of creation, but neglected to supply the sun (on which both plants and “days” depend) until the fourth day.
Gen. 6:6-7 – Because a few people displeased him, God “repented” having made the world, and decided to destroy all life on Earth.
Lev. 11:5-6 – God thinks rabbits are cud-chewing animals.
Deut. 22:5 – All cross-dressers, or women who wear pants, are “abominations.”
Deut. 25:11-12 – A woman who seizes a man’s genitals, even to defend her husband from an attacker, must have her hand cut off.
Deut. 33:17 – God believes in unicorns.
Matt. 5:22 – Jesus says anyone who calls another “fool” will go to hell, but then does it himself. (Matt. 23:17)
1 Tim. 2:9 – Christian women are forbidden to braid their hair or wear jewelry.
James 5:14-15 – Prayer by the elders of the church is the only sure cure for sickness. (Christian Science, anyone?)
Which Ten Commandments do you prefer? Ex. 20, Ex. 34, Deut. 5 or Deut. 27?
Barbara G. Walker is author of the monumental feminist/freethought sourcebook The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (1983). Her 20 other books, published by Harper & Row, include The Skeptical Feminist. An atheist, she has also specialized in debunking New Age assertions.
Order Walker’s newest book (many chapters of which were originally published in Freethought Today), Man Made God (Steller Press), $24 ppd., from FFRF, Box 750, Madison, WI, 53701, or at ffrf.org/shop/.
April 10, 2012
